Luis Pacheco on the Sanctity of the Creative Bubble

Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, G-Unit, Lady Gaga, and loads of other artists have recorded at The Hideout in Las Vegas, where Recording Connection mentor engineer/producer Luis Pacheco can be found working with some of today’s biggest artists and teaching the pros of tomorrow.

For Luis, music is nothing short of one of the highest forms of art. And since making art is the goal, everything must work in service of the art and artist, whether the “artist” he’s collaborating with is a composer, producer, or world-renowned performer. Understandably then, Luis is selective about who he lets into the room during a collaborative session or as he likes to call it, “the creative bubble”:

I’ve collaborated with quite a few artists and I feel like there’s a studio etiquette to that too. It’s not about being a person who says, ‘Okay, I want to do things my way and we’re not going to listen,’ you know? It’s more about having an open mind. I feel like you have to visualize it as a creative bubble. You’re letting the collaborator be in the creative bubble with you to co-create something.”

There’s a definite upside to getting into the bubble with other producers and engineers:

You can learn different workflows and how people work. Cause all that stuff is different from person to person. You pick up on things yourself, too, so that you can better your workflow. Because I mean, I feel like everyone is always going to be constantly learning. That’s just part of this career path, because there’s always going to be new gear, new this, new that.”

But be cautious and remember the creative bubble needs to be safeguarded, especially when recording vocals or a player:

You have to be careful because the slightest thing can turn a session rollercoaster ride. Remember every session is different. So it’s like you kind of have to acclimate to it, and not just by the stuff that you know, but more of just like being a psychiatrist sometimes…kind of letting the them know that this is a comfortable place to record…You want to word things positively…There are so many ways of doing it, but you just want…to be like, ‘Hey, that was a great take, but maybe we could get one better,’ or something like that.”

When asked about whether there’s a place for ego in the studio, Luis is emphatic about in his stance:

“No. You’ve got to leave that all at the door. You have one goal as a producer to make something sound good, create something good. So it’s like if you have some sort of negative vibe, it’s not going to work. So you’ve got to have an open mind.”